Bill T. Jones Traces His Life Through Music

A recent special on "Q2 with Terrance McKnight" featured an exclusive two-hour interview with MacArthur "Genius" Award-winner Bill T. Jones and traced his life through music.

Jones, well known as an artistic director, choreographer and dancer, reminisced about listening to B.B. King as a child, learning of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez at college, listening to Barbra Streisand with his late partner Arnie Zane, and the music that was playing as Zane died.

The special, which was originally created for WXQR, can be heard by visiting online by clicking here.

Bill T. Jones is a 2007 Tony® Award winner and the recipient of the 2007 Obie Award and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation CALLAWAY Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening, the recipient of the 2007 USA Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship, the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven, the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the prestigious 2005 Wexner Prize, and the Aaron Davis Hall Harlem Renaissance Award. He is also a MacArthur "Genius" Award recipient in 1994, named one of America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures by the Dance Heritage Coalition in 2000, and was awarded The 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for which recipients are considered trailblazers who have redefined their art and reshaped the cultural landscape. He began his dance training at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY), where he studied classical ballet and modern dance. After living in Amsterdam, Mr. Jones returned to SUNY, where he became co-founder of the American Dance Asylum in 1973. Before forming Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982, Mr. Jones choreographed and performed nationally and internationally as a soloist and duet company with his late partner, Arnie Zane.

In addition to creating more than 100 works for his own company, Mr. Jones has received many commissions to create dances for modern and ballet companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Axis Dance Company, Boston Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Berkshire Ballet, Berlin Opera Ballet and Diversions Dance Company, and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company's The Flight Project. He has also received numerous commissions to create new works for his own company, including premieres for the American Dance Festival, the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music and for St. Luke's Chamber Orchestra. In 1995, Mr. Jones directed and performed in a collaborative work with Toni Morrison and Max Roach, Degga, commissioned by Lincoln Center's Serious Fun Festival and with Jessye Norman, How! Do! We! Do! which premiered at New York's City Center in 1999 as part of Lincoln Center's Great Performers New Visions series. The Breathing Show, Mr. Jones' evening long solo, toured for three years, and his second solo show, As I Was Saying..., toured for more than two. He has directed and choreographed for theatre and opera, most recently choreographing Off-Broadway for the New York Theatre Workshop's production of The Seven for which he was awarded the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Best Choreography and for the Broadway musical Spring Awakening.

Mr. Jones has received honorary doctorates from the Art Institute of Chicago, Bard College, Columbia College, the Juilliard School, Swarthmore College and Yales as well as the SUNY Binghamton Distinguished Alumni Award.

 Photo Credit: Monica Simoes